


The passing of time brings the path to the gathered

by laughingpineapple



Category: Journey (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 17:25:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/600281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/pseuds/laughingpineapple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The call is gravity. The call is deep understanding. The call is flight and joy. A circular journey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The passing of time brings the path to the gathered

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tintenseher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tintenseher/gifts).



_] The hill of fire allows them to find their way._  
  
 **The traveller's bare cloak flows under the sun.** The traveller's mind is as clear as the deep red weavings of its cloth, brightened by the simple line that ties the road ahead with its past steps. The traveller feels alien to this desert. The sky is heavy with its golds, rocks lie motionless and nurture tombs. Sand waits for wind that doesn't come.  
A speck of red sliding down a dune changes nothing. The world is dead and gathers dust.  
But the mountain, the mountain calls and there is a drumming energy in that fixed line of rock, in that fixed light upon the horizon, it's movement within the traveller's fibres, it's the one thread that pulls. The traveller doesn't know better than to think it 'sacred', it chirps a single deferent note and takes a new step forward.  
  
  
  
  
  
 _] The passing of time brings the past to the present._  
  
 **Treaded sand under the traveller's feet.** A ring of ruins looms around the gate that opens on the journey's road. This time, these are not empty shrines to the traveller: memories woven in gold, deep within its fibre, tell of the places they commemorate. The buildings sit in circle, a reminder that the way out is spiralling and alight (a confused memory: there are no lights here, just the dry scorching desert sun. Later, perhaps, they will regain their meaning), and the traveller climbs the steps to each stair to sit and pray. It is a mock journey, a small, round review of places to come. The shrines are joined, dark grate after worn stone tile, but the traveller's circle is broken: as it thinks and collects and meditates, understanding escapes like grains. It needs stronger weavings to hold its truths. Another round, seen with eyes that will not be blinded by novelty and fear. The sand will not hide its meanings this time.  
  
  
  
  
  
 ___] The patient find solace in the wait,_  
 ___    ] While the restless follow the path of folly._  
 _] Follow the patient path._  
  
 **The traveller's white cloak glimmers under the sun.** The mountain calls. The mountain has learned patience. So has the traveller. There is a wall in the middle of the desert, under a green sky, and in that wall are two windows. Those stones are an exercise in futility, the traveller has concluded, a sacred threshold between here and still here. A place to meditate. For one day, it rests, white silhouette framed by the stone arch, and greets the falling sparks.  
Its journey is better for the wait.  
  
  
  
  
  
 _] Knowing the least is the path of wisdom._  
 _] A sweet aroma rising up._  
  
 **New sand under the traveller's feet.** The guide that sings and hastens alone in the dark haze has the markings of a teacher, although one whose rightful student is walking elsewhere in this world. Its scarf was a beacon as the dust clouds ate up the desert, but no reassurance came our of chasing after it, no company to shut out the creaks and hums of ancient machinery growling at the heart of these towers. The traveller rather heeds the call of simple cloth. A herd swims imprisoned in the thickened air, singing its plain existence behind the tower's bars. The traveller sits and joins in with notes that tell of falls of sand, of heavy pillars and light bridges, of a single flower treasured by the endless dunes and of the mountain, which is every thought's beginning and its end. The darkness is kept at bay by their chords.  
  
  
  
  
  
 _] This is your one answer._  
 _] What is given is proof of it._  
  
 **The traveller's scarf twirls and shines in the wind.** Sunset paints its fabric red again, as a reminder, and there is death in its path, it has seen the dust and the tombs, seen the city sink ever lower in the sands. It has seen death and it has known death, as endings lie in the folds of its cloak and beyond the mountain's storms, but the meeting point of then and soon, on these desert slopes, is still movement and flight.  
It sings of joy in the warm currents.  
  
  
  
  
  
 _] Rest in the light._  
 _] Call in the dark._  
  
 **The traveller remembers:** darkness and fear reigned in the passage, collecting the misery of the dead city above. Desolation dampens the sand, this much is true, and the traveller still feels it dense under its feet, while the guardians loom ahead and mark their presence with every low rumble. What it did not remember is that there is peace to be found in these halls. There is so much still, silent life whose growth clashes with the other peace, that of the dead, like the spots of sunlight dotting the dark path. It is just as blinding. This new memory will be kept close.  
The traveller has seen a flower thrive in the desert and it sees vibrant cloth bloom in the bleakest ruins. A thread of life. It sits upon the highest bud and counts the shades of blue.  
  
  
  
  
  
 _] The action of the gathered means nothing._  
 _] The action of the deceived is toiling in vain._  
  
 **The traveller knows nothing, so it searches.** It searches within the rock and it searches within the memories that the journey has spun under its cloak: humble questions blend and thread into black answers as the roar of the stone guardians still echoes within the corridor's walls. Stone does not lie: the traveller has seen their masks crash down in fury, it has seen the statues flank the passage, it has seen its own mask and that of its brethren and they are one and the same. Monsters roam their past.  
The safe haven of the temple's first lights shimmers with warmth but offers little refuge against the new truths the traveller has found: how does one rise from such a low? How does a people?  
The temple's doors open and bear an offer: the way up is spiralling and alight.  
  
  
  
  
  
 _] Another teaches,_  
 _] So that the choices are ours._  
  
 **The traveller's scarf is long.** Not as long as its playful companion's, whose blinding white twirls spiral around the traveller's form one, two, three times, as an offering and a bond, before bolting upwards. This other, this friend, stands perched on the tower's first steps and calls. It reaches out and calls.  
They share a chant: small pitches mid-air, long notes from the ground. It is a goodbye: the traveller is not ready for what the other asks of it. Its mask is fixed on the distant white silhouette until it shimmers out of sight.  
The traveller still needs to know the earth before leaving the ground. There are protrusions on the temple's walls – an ascension can be attempted through that path. A slow journey.  
These memories, too, it needs to keep close.  
  
  
  
  
  
 _] Does this end have to leave so soon?_  
 _] Do not take the end from me._  
  
 **The traveller's ornate cloak is burdened by snow.** It recognizes the tombs. It prays at every stone – all it does is praying in song, it seems, and taking up the burden of old deaths. The traveller has been here before and it will be here again. The way up. The way up spirals through a fall. Many falls. Its fall. The mountain knows. The wind cuts through the traveller's voice, its warm hues, its strength, and when there is one whisper left before the ice, the traveller knows that the tomb it prays for is its own.  
 _The way is still long_ , a young voice chirps. _The mountain is tall._ This new companion's spirit keeps its warmth. Its cloak is bare, it does not know.  
One last stretch, together, and then the last fall (for now).  
  
  
  
  
  
 _] Take time to know the faces of stone._  
  
 **Old snow under the traveller's feet.** There is no young one to protect as the stone serpent strikes and undoes the traveller's energy at the seams: it knew the hit would come and did not hide. The blow's anger melts in the ice; the traveller sings of compassion. The creature they built for war, it hopes, will have shed one sliver of its burden. For a time.  
The traveller lifts its mask, hood, cloak, broken cloth, tired feet back on the road.   
  
  
  
  
  
_] Is this the ending?_  
 _] Is this what I wait for?_  
 _] There can be no deception_  
 _] With such dreams that outweigh my own._  
  
 **The traveller's scarf is short.** And in the end, it does not matter. It is one answer to the traveller's search, that the end is red with life and blue with air and white with snow and light, and that the weights and masks that the traveller and its companion shed under the blizzard do not matter. The mountain beams with colours the world down under has forgotten, the mountain knows all answers and they will take but one, the mountain calls and they sing back.  
This moment will pass and be covered by treaded sand, but one certainty shines, rippling over the bright, crisp calls and symbols that fill the air: they are born for this.  
  
  
  
  
  
 _] Follow the path of light, enter a new beginning._  
  
 **The traveller knows.**  
(there is no ending)  
Past tracks beside its steps.  
It transcends.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Yuletide! And... happy first Yuletide, if I'm not mistaken? I wish you the best of fic-exchanging experiences. And I hope this gift comes close to your expectations, dear giftee. With no additional details, I tried to stay close to canon and write my personal 'ultimate Journey fic', basing the newbie redcloak, experienced redcloak and whitecloak on some of my own feelings during my journeys... and then building a circular structure for their iterations.  
> The quotes at the beginning of each part come from Uru (Journey's spiritual prequel in everything but streamlined design imho) and so does the title. I don't usually put quotes as titles, but considering how "I was born for this" brings together the world's literature in its lyrics, eh, I thought that adding a bit of D'ni to the mix wouldn't hurt.


End file.
